


Warrior's Flame

by Jessicamariek



Category: Final Fantasy X
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 18:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessicamariek/pseuds/Jessicamariek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Al Bhed have a very different way of mourning their dead. Rikku gives her friends a warrior's due. Set immediately after the end of FFX, spoilers for said ending. (Moogle Fluff, FFEX 2013)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warrior's Flame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [owlmoose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlmoose/gifts).



> Prompt:  
> "Yuna's not the only one who loses a friend when Tidus fades away. Rikku goes into denial, Wakka kicks the roof of the airship, Lulu pulls closer to Kimahri and gives a sad little wave. How do the others feel about it? How does his apparent death affect them? Any one of these characters, or combination thereof, would be great. Could be between games or during X-2."
> 
> This prompt was a perfect excuse to write a scene that's been kicking around my head for ages - Rikku mourning her friends, the Al Bhed way.

I’m too young for this.

On the other hand, is anyone ever ready for this sort of thing? Is there such a thing as “old enough” to have to mourn a friend? Are you _ever_ prepared for that?  
But I have to do it. Nobody else can – nobody else has the right. I’m the only one who can.

Yevonites don’t understand the way we grieve. To them – well, to _most_ of them, I guess – grief is an action – a Sending, pyreflies on the air, ooh ah look at the pretty lights and then you get on with your life. We don’t think that way. To an Al Bhed, the loved ones we lose are with us forever, in our hearts and memories, in the light on the water and the wind in your hair. They stay with us, and we’re never really alone again. ( _Remember when we sat outside the Farplane and talked about this, Auron? And you told me that you understood what I meant, even though I couldn’t really put the words together right – that you carried your lost ones with you, through every step you took? I think maybe I understand now just what you were talking about._ )

There’s no one person who dances the dead to rest, not with us. There’s no single voice that sings the elegy, no one pair of shoulders to bear the burden. The Lorekeeper, my aunt, she decides when we sing, when we dance, but she doesn’t do these things alone. The entire ship, every Al Bhed still living, we all sang today – an old song, not the Hymn of the Fayth but one of our own. Our entire race mourns my friends. It doesn’t make me feel any better.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some things that have to be earned. And the Warrior’s Flame is one of those things. You have to have fought and bled beside the person who died, you have to have depended on each other for your lives, you have to have been – well, the word translates to “blade brother”, and it’s somewhere between ‘comrade’ and ‘friend’ and ‘family’. Nobody else can claim that. I’m the only one who has the right to do this tonight.

I know I’m still technically too young for one part of this – the strong, throat-burning drink in the little metal cup ( _do you remember that time, Tidus, when I was bragging about my thief-y skills and you dared me to lift Auron’s jug? And we were stupid and decided to try whatever unholy brew he kept in there and I thought I was gonna start breathing fire? Yeah, that was an awful idea, but damn, it’s a good memory_ ). We’re not really allowed to drink until we’re eighteen, even though we’re technically grown-ups at sixteen – and no, I don’t feel “grown up” six weeks after my birthday – but that doesn’t really matter right now. Cider and juice won’t work for this, no matter how young I still am. The drink has to burn, in a couple senses of the word. 

I should be doing this in the desert, with night-cold sand beneath my feet instead of smooth metal, but we’re far away from Home right now. I should be alone, nobody but myself and my ghosts, but Wakka’s standing over by the door leaning against the wall and not saying anything, just like I asked. “I just wanna…. I’ve lost too many friends today, ya, and I wanna make sure you’re not gonna try something stupid,” he said when I told him I was supposed to be alone, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to punch him in the arm for thinking I’d be that melodramatic or hug him for caring so much about me. My hair’s down around my shoulders, loose and formal like it has to be to do this magic, and my feet are bare ( _like when you dance the Sending, Yunie – there’s no steps to this, but I guess there’s something about being barefoot and vulnerable that makes the magic come easier. But this is one kind of magic I hope you’ll never have to touch_ ). I walk to the edge of the airship’s deck, kneel down and place the tray in front of me.

One match and three cups of alcohol. One for me, and one for each friend I’ve lost today. 

“I know neither of you spoke Old Al Bhed,” I say in common, to nobody I can see, “but I’m not sure this will work if I say the words so you’d understand them. I think… I think you’ll get the gist of it anyways though. You guys are smart.” I take a deep breath and straighten my shoulders.

I have to do this, and I have to do it right. No tears, no obvious sorrow, no sign of how broken I feel – not for the next minute or so. I can cry afterwards but not now.

“I pour this glass to air,” I start to recite the old words, “for you, who cannot drink it with me.” The match strikes against the side of my arm-guard, and the flame catches easily on the fumes, setting two of the glasses alight. The flames burn higher, straighter than alcohol should – more like torches than a soft blue glow over the liquid. All part of the magic. “I light this flame for you. If you have found your way to the field of deathless flowers, I light this flame to warm you there, as love and friendship warmed you here. If your spirit wanders restlessly, I light this flame to guide you to me, so I may bring you your final peace.” I have to swallow around the lump in my throat before I say the last line. I have to try to tamp down the tiny flame of hope that this isn’t forever, that we _will_ see each other again. I have to make it to the end before I let that hope break me.  
“And if you still walk this earth,” I say, staring up at the stars, “I light this flame as a beacon to guide you home to those who love you still.”  
I knock back the unburned drink, swallowing the alcohol in one searing mouthful, and the flames in front of me flare up – a good magic, twin pillars of fire that rise above my head and then fall back down. That’s supposed to mean that the friends for whom I lit the flames have felt them and acknowledged them. 

I try to pretend the tears in my eyes are from the burn of the alcohol.


End file.
